Great episode. I called Faraday’s daddy and what was going to happen (too many Chekov’s guns… saying “anyone of us can die” is pretty much putting an expiration date on your forehead).

But I am also curious about the introduction of “variables”. I suppose it has been hinted at – would the Others have buried the bomb if the Back from the Future team hadn’t shown up? But changing all the events of the last few years… that seems a bit more traumatic.

One thing bugged me about this episode to no end: is it really feasible to think that a scientist of Faraday’s intelligence, education, and standing would ever “forget” about variables? Especially during a 10-year-plus span of studying something? Other than that, good stuff. Assuming he really is dead, I love that his story arc is essentially a Heinlein-style short story.

If we are to assume that Daniel was “cured” when he came to the island with the freighter four, did he revert to his memory-loss when he went to Ann Arbor with the Dharma folk?
Or like Locke (who did not revert to his paralyzed state when he left the island) was he seemingly cured for good?

“If we are to assume that Daniel was ‘cured’ when he came to the island with the freighter four, did he revert to his memory-loss when he went to Ann Arbor with the Dharma folk?”

I believe Daniel’s mind was damaged in his “time experiment” similar to Desmond’s exposure to the time energy when the hatch exploded and creating a similar type of dementia. And like Desmond who was cured when he came into contact with his constant [Penny], Daniel was cured when he met his constant [Desmond].

Eloise Hawkings = worst mother ever [at least, in the top ten]. They should have saved that episode for the same week as Mother’s Day.

To me, Faraday’s actions in the last couple of minutes were out of character. This is a guy that has just used a gun for (apparently) the first time, who was just wounded as a result of gunplay, and we’re supposed to accept that he’d go storming into the Others’ camp waving a firearm, hopelessly outnumbered? That he’d point that gun at another person’s head and count to three? That just doesn’t fit the Faraday we’d seen up to now. :(
And yeah, they sure telegraphed the outcome.
So Faraday was the “majorish” death in this year’s final episodes. There’s one “major” character death to come. My money’s on Sayid. Shooting a child in the chest? Smokey ain’t gonna like that.

Faraday must have been born in the early 1970s. That makes him an island-baby. However, he’s playing the piano in a house that looks nothing like an island-hut. So I’m a little confused there.

Wanting to save Charlotte and talking to Charlotte alive as a child and realizing he had a conversation with her that he never wanted to have just pushed Daniel over the edge (the last of one edges too many). That’s why he rushed into Richard’s camp. But what Daniel’s trying to do by erasing time is so extreme that the island just won’t have it. The island is certainly not going to have Richard shot dead. So Daniel had to be stopped. And he was.

But I think Daniel will survive because there’s a surgeon in close proximity. They’ll give him a change of clothes, maybe some nice raggedy brown apparel. Then they’ll put him in a cabin to recover; the same one the “hostiles” have appropriated from Horace. Then The Incident will occur, and Daniel Faraday will become stuck in time in the cabin and become Jacob.

Or Daniel has actually died, in which case Jack will become Jacob, and he’ll have pleasant conversations with his dad and half-sister in the cabin, and they will become the Shepherds of the island.

Since I’ve written about time travel problems before, in the context of Marvel’s “Avengers” series:

Supposing that there is a single time stream and that one can either alter the past to affect the present or future, or travel forward in time creates cause-and-effect problems. For example, the current DARK AVENGERS storyline has Morgana Le Fay going forward in time to battle the Dark Avengers. How will the battle end? Well, if there’s a single time stream and she can view events in the future, then she could view coverage/analysis of the battle and use that to shape her plans, and reverse cause and effect in the process.

Of course, altering events in the past and thereby affecting or eliminating one’s own existence also raises cause and effect issues.

The only way to avoid such logical snarls, IMO, is to suppose that all time travel involves leaving one’s original time stream and entering/creating an alternate time stream. Traveling forward into one’s own future is impossible.

“Faraday must have been born in the early 1970s. That makes him an island-baby. ”

I didn’t see it that way. I thought that something occurs (perhaps Charles getting Elly pregnant) that causes her to leave the island. I’d always thought that Faraday grew up elsewhere and not on the island.

When she enters the room where young Daniel is playing the piano she’s crying (or looks as if she was crying) maybe she just found out that she will be the one that will kill Daniel on the island. That she has to push him away from music and into math/science so that one day he’ll end up on the island where she’ll shoot him.

ALSO…I generally HATE TIME TRAVEL stories but this one has spun out in such a way that I really really enjoy it.

I had forgotten about Jacob’s plaintive “Help me!!!” until, by chance, I saw the episode in question on a late night TV crawl. It seems to be one of the key moments in the entire mythology.

REMARK: when Faraday burst in on Jack and demanded to know how he got there, it was one of the VERY few times on the entrie show that someone just asked a question like that outright. Darlton studiously avoids that kind of “inside conversation” on the show (there were plenty on Twin Peaks, for instance, as Cooper and Harry would discuss the facts of the mystery.) I guess that kind of stuff is left for internet message boards now.

Idea: Maybe Jacob is RODZINSKI! He seems to have a big part in the mythology, and he’s certainly a…forceful personality.

Idea 2: Will Eyeliner Guy take Faraday to the same place that fixed up young Ben?

Problems: HOW THE HELL DO THE NATIVES LIVE? They have tents and so on and live over fire pits but wear shorts and tops from ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH. Come on now!

I’m looking forward to watching this season again on DVD….everything has tied together so well. It’s a true example of TV narrative at its finest.

“Or Daniel has actually died, in which case Jack will become Jacob, and he’ll have pleasant conversations with his dad and half-sister in the cabin, and they will become the Shepherds of the island.”

Holy crap.

“Jack” is a form of “Jacob”. What if Jack is the one who becomes unstuck in time? What if the rival of Locke becomes his master? The guy who insisted the Island was nothing special becomes one of the most special aspects of the Island?

It would certainly fit with all of the character polarity reversals going on. (More magnetism!) Up is down! Black is white! Cats and dogs sleeping together!

So Daniel is Penny’s half-brother?? Interesting parallel to Jack and Claire;
and that one’s alive and the other dead(?).

Wonder if there’s any more yet-unrevealed paternal links: will we find out that Charlie is Juliet’s half-bro? Hurley’s half-sister being Ana Lucia? Rose being Eko’s half-sister? Or even that Christian Shepard is Eloise Hawking’s half-brother? Season finale revelation: EVERYONE is related!

I do wonder just what Eloise had planned for Daniel. Whatever it was, over almost thirty years, it didn’t include to filling him in on what happened. This would also seem to invalidate his idea of “variables”, at least for him.